A Rebate Check Well Spent
Worried about the recession? Maybe you should have been at the contemporary art auction at Christie’s last night where a portrait of a 280 pound naked civil servant named Sue garnered $33.6 million. That price nearly doubled the highest amount previously paid for a work by the artist, Lucien Freud. A Francis Bacon tryptch that sold for $2.9 million nine years ago went for $28 million. And the seller of Rothko’ s “No. 15″ took home $45 million, quadrupling his investment. For all the talk of a domestic economic meltdown it’s even more surprising that American buyers dominated their European and Asian competition. So what gives? Perhaps collectors took President Bush’s call to help the economy to heart and spent their $600 economic stimulus checks. Simon de Pury offerred Big Think a better explanation. The chairman of the famed auction house Phillip de Pury & Co. said that contemporary art is the last genre where someone can still hope to build a serious collection. And with great pieces becoming ever more scarce, prices will continue to rise. Mr. de Pury proclaimed “…in five, ten years you won’t be able to find the best Jeff Koons anymore.” So get your stimulus check ready because tomorrow de Pury’s house is auctioning off a marble bust by Koons. Expected price: six to eight million dollars.
